Friday, June 22nd, 2018

Supreme Court: Police Generally Need Warrant for Historical Cell-Site Information

In Carpenter v. United States, the Supreme Court today held that the government’s acquisition of historical cell-site location information constitutes a Fourth Amendment search and the government generally will be required to obtain a warrant to acquire that information.  The so-called third-party doctrine does not permit the government to obtain cell-site location information as “business records” because “[t]here is a world of difference between the limited types of personal information [permissibly obtained under the third-party doctrine] and the exhaustive chronicle of location information casually collected by wireless carriers.”

 

You can read SCOTUSblog’s analysis of the case here.

 

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